


The Helper

by HelenofTroy



Category: Agora (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 01:43:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19097194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenofTroy/pseuds/HelenofTroy
Summary: Hypatia is completing her philosophy training.Her life is already drawn, she will follow his father's path.Everything she has done, what she will do is up there, somewhere in the written universe. But where?Theon her father, he's right. In her house all the slaves have their chores and the main one is an old man.Hypatia is old enough to take care of her businesses, including having a personal assistant for her things, her classes and her personal care. It would be a good idea to buy one.That's where Hypatia  finds Davus, desolate, in the market, but Hypatia feels that something connects them, something that does not go beyond slave / mistress but that will pierce too much in the young child's heart.





	The Helper

Hypatia brushed her dark hair from her eyes.  
The warm wind blew as if it would never end.  
She was tired, thirsty and bored.  
She should not have come to the market with her father, not today. Hypatia was missing revising the maps of Ptolemy's geography. At last her father had brought them from the Library.

The old slave Metellus was sick, but he had managed to bring her the scrolls.   
When Hypatia saw him coming in the morning she felt ashamed. As now when she saw him.  
Theon climbed the steep stairs. He walked almost as slowly as the old man next to him. Metelus was coming with him again. 

What were the slaves really? Was it fair to give them that deal?" -Hypatia was uncomfortable. The slave was too much old.   
Hypatia watched the blue, weary eyes of old Metellus.

-Metellus   
-Yes, Lady.   
-Take a little of my water, please.   
The slave dennied.   
-Please, Metellus

The old man finally did it. He took a little of her water, brought for herself of the great fountain of the same market in her personal canteen. 

-Father! Hypatia yelled, approaching him slowly.  
Metellus took his place after his masters, lowering his head.

-Why did you bring him, father? He´s enough old-whispered Hypatia in his father´s ears. 

Theon smiled. 

-Are you contemplating the significance of slaves?  
Hypatia shook her head, taking his father for impossible.

But Theon stopped in silence.  
-Yes, you're doing it -his smile grew more and more- you feel sorry for Metellus.  
-So it is-she said  
-It is good to know that there is some subject on which you reflect besides Ptolemy, my daughter.  
\- You have not taught me to look like that?

-That's right, I did, so I beg you to take a slave for you. That's why we're here, Hypatia.

-But...-Hypatia looked around.  
She saw the merchants lower the dresses to the slaves to show the buyers their breasts, and to these as if they were statues without feeling anything.  
Hypatia also saw the men, exposed as if they were horses, with their mouths open, and their backs gleaming.

The slaves were treated like animals.

-I couldn´t -she concluded denning with her head, shaking it like if she would be horrified. 

-This is not a map, Hypatia. I understand that disrespectful must seem to you. But you're already old enough to know that there's also stargazing, daughter.

-I know, father, but it's ... inhuman.

-It is what is expected of us, what we need, Hypatia. Tell me how old are you?

She fixed her eyes on him, asking the same question.  
-I'm old  
-Not philosophized now, Hypatia  
-I'm seventeen, father.  
-And what is expected of you?

-To buy an assistant.

-Then do it. That´s all. 

Theon shook her daughter's shoulders under her red dress, and her headdress fell apart.

-Excuse me, daughter- said his father, giving her the bag with the coins. Then he saw the fatigue of Metellus. Even he had a heart.

-I will wait for you at the fountain  
-All right, father 

Hypatia went to the slave station.

A woman was screaming disconsolately. She was a woman from Syria or some nearby province because of her olive skin and her accent.  
She was overweight and was holding on to a little boy who, without moving except for the pulls of the woman and the foreman, drowned silently under great tears.

\- Leave him , witch! You have already been sold-the merchant ordered the foreman to be removed from there.

-No Please! Do not turn me away from my son! Davus, Davus! 

The little Davus was silent, crying.  
Hypatia watched the scene as if she wanted to dispel the moment in one of her rolls. As if she wanted to write everything she had seen, felt, heard. And then she would read it and reflect on it.  
Surely it was written in heaven.

Hypatia watched the boy turn around, and cling helplessly to the bars of his wooden cage.

As if it were a dream, she passed by slowly, determined to put an end to the spell that that dramatic scene had hypnotized her.

He felt the boy's big eyes climb up the bars.

-No, gods. Do not look at me, do not look at me- thought Hypatia with terror.  
She was afraid that if he did it would be too late.

Her heart broke as her coins fell to the floor of her bag when the child looked at her.

Hypatia felt all the pain retained by the boy in his face, in the tremor of his little arms, his small legs.

Hypatia bent down to pick up her coins awkwardly. She felt the interested look of the child on her. It was obvious that her brief clumsiness had distracted him from his pain.

Hypatia went to the cage.  
-What is your name?  
-Davus-said the boy looking at the woman with a sweet look. He cleaned his tears slowly. All was so sad, intriguing and disturbing at same time. He seemed an old guy, broken and defeated for live. 

He felt how she was scrutinizing him, looking for something he did not recognize. But he knew that she was a good woman.  
Her long, loose, disheveled black hair was so different from her mother's ... Davus tried to find in her that momentary replacement that every child would have sought, slave or not.  
Hypatia knew it. But it was late for that.

In addition Davus watched her expression fascinated, lost in the own admiration that the young woman seemed to feel for him.

Davus was silent, crying.  
Hypatia watched the scene as if she wanted to dispel the moment in one of her rolls. As if he wanted to write everything he had seen, felt, heard. And then I would read it and reflect on it.  
Surely it was written in heaven.

-How old are you, Davus?  
-Five- he said-but I'll serve six ..

-He has seven, ma'am- said the merchant-the perfect age to mold him for what your house needs.

-I want an assistant. The person must be obedient, neat and clean -she said- I do not have time to teach anyone, I need someone to obey so alone.

The merchant was an ungainly and unfriendly man. He spat rudely and pushed Davo towards her, until his small face plunged against the bars.

-It's fine, I'll take him! Hypatia said.  
She paid the merchant, and he let the boy go with the woman. 

-Are you ok, boy? -Hypatia touched the boy's shoulder -Davus?

But Davus looked back one last time.  
Hypatia observed the love of a child for its mother, and its heart to bend. But for some reason Davo was stoic.  
She bore with only six years what she herself could not bear.

Hypatia would remember that moment every day of her life.

 

When she got home, she assigned the child a small bed next to her own bed that she improvised on the floor next to Metellus with straw, quilts and a pillow from the slaves.

\- Why do you want him to sleep here?  
Theon looked at the boy, stupefied.

-Because he has lost his mother, father. And he is only six years old.

-I see. He will be your work, Hypatia. 

Hypatia then understood the great responsibility. The child's safety would be yours.

-Davus- she said-tell me about your previous owner.

Davus then looked at her, then started talking.

\- My mother worked in Sicily for the wife of a Roman legacy, he was my father - said the boy.

\- Do you know how to read and write Greek?

-Yes, Lady-said the boy 

-Good. Tomorrow we´ll start with my papers about Ptolomy-she said making a gesture to Davus that he knew very well.  
He helped her take off her sandals.

-You are a talented boy, i can see it-she said, opening the courtains, and going to have her usual meeting with the moon and the stars. 

Davus followed her, barefoot like her on the cold marble floor.  
He look around. Her entire room was reduced to a large bed, the curtains and numerous round and geometric figures.  
Meters, rules.

The new mistress was a scholar. But also. Why was she so strange?

Davus followed her, not knowing what to do and that was when he saw her. Rolled on the floor, with arms and legs open.

-Come on, Davus-she said  
The boy approached slowly, looking up.

-You see? Those points that are next to the moon, those of light?   
-Yes, mistress-said Davus next to her

And then, a question turned on his kid´s mind. 

-Is my mother there?   
-Oh yes, she´s -said Hypatia-and she will be always. All how happens to her, to me, to you is already written in the stars, in the universe. 

Davus saw her obsession, the true object of desire that would live inside that young woman all her life.   
Besides, Hypatia had the sweetest, most kind face Davus had ever seen.  
The first thing he remembered about her years later was the kindness with which he treated him that first night in Alexandria.

Davus sat next to the philosopher.

\- Your name is Hypatia?  
-Yes, but you should not pronounce it, boy. You're not here for that-she said-remember your place, Davus.   
-Yes, mistress. 

Hypatia´s voice was the most feminine and beautiful voice that Davus had heard. Hypatia made something as unpleasant as what she had just said to be complacent.

Davus smiled. So slightly that Hypatia did not recognize him.

From then on, the boy's life was easier.

Each day he accompanied his mistress to the great library and held her material in class.  
Even when she had to go to class at the house of an unpleasant and lazy child named Orestes, a few years older than Davus, he felt uncomfortable.

He observed the straight and perfect nose of Hypatia lying on the map, showing the places where Aristotle had pointed out the stars, and the other child, Orestes, absorbed in her presence.

As much as Davus. This was terrible for him. With each attention of Hypatia to another kid, deeply inside Davus started to feel a twinge of jealousy  
She had been like a mother the day she met him, how could she comfort so many if she did not have children?  
What if the Hypatia would get married and giving birth to more children, would forget him? Would she want more to a spooky husband than to his faithful slave?

Years passed, and Davus began to sleep in the slaves' room. The domus was not his place, but he was next to Hypatia as if he were his shadow.  
With the confidence that the years gave it was Davus who dried her naked after her bath, who ordered her papers while she slept, who bought her material when she became a teacher, and who went with her to her classes.

The presence of Davus along with Hypatia was known as a kind of shadow in Alexandria.  
The scholar did nothing without her faithful lapdog according to Orestes. But she felt the devotion of Davus, blindly.

Hypatia did not feel what this devotion had become. In the fire within the heart of the quiet young man, who listened to each of her theories in the classes as if he were deaf to any other sound, and watched her for hours and hours without stopping while she wrote and he pretended to sleep.

Inside Davus the girl had disappeared, to be only the mistress Hypatia. 

Outside, the Christians in the parables were the only ones who stole his attention from their mistress.  
They talked about a good man, who dressed like Hypatia and who taught all kinds of men without discriminating against anyone because of their position.  
Was Jesus like Hypatia?  
For Davus, yes, that's why he saw in her that blinding divinity that gave her beauty, the figure of her body that now that he was sixteen years old seemed like the work of an artist.  
Something to touch, something to be desired.

Hypatia was his teacher, his mentor, his guide. Without her there was nothing for Davus. For that he would hate Orestes or any man who could have her, take her pretty far, letting Davus without a work, a company, a relative.   
His friendship with the other slaves, with Master Theon did not matter.  
Only her.

But there was no place in her except for her objects, her theories that even slept repeated, when Davus escaped to touch it as if it were a relic during the night. For Ptolomy´s ideas. 

-Hypatia ...


End file.
